Carnival’s Revenue Up, CEO Takes A Hit

MIAMI (CBS4) – Miami based Carnival Corp. saw their annual revenue jump 8-percent to around $14.5 million last year – about a million more than 2009.

The cruise line, which runs the Holland America line, Princess Cruises, Carnival Cruise Lines, Costa Cruises and other lines, reported in December that its full-year net income climbed 11 percent to $1.98 billion, or $2.47 per share, compared with $1.79 billion, or $2.24 per share, in the previous year.

However Carnival’s top man took a bit of a hit. CEO Micky Arison only received about $7 million in compensation, a three percent decrease from the prior year. While his base salary remained the same at $880-thousand, the difference was in other compensation (health insurance, automobile allowance, security, personal use of company aircraft) which totaled a bit more than $127-thousand for 2010; in 2009 this amount was considerable more at $496,500.

Arison also received restricted stock awards valued at $3.5 million on the day they were granted. In fiscal 2009 the executive received about $3.6 million in restricted stock awards.

The formula used by the Associated Press to calculate an executive’s compensation is designed to isolate the value that the company’s board placed on the executive’s total compensation package during the last fiscal year. It includes salary, bonus, performance-related bonuses, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don’t include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the total reported by companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission.